By: KeyCrew Media

The commercial real estate industry faces a paradox. Technology solutions proliferate, AI promises abound, yet most property owners remain confused about how to actually apply any of it. OpticWise CEO Bill Douglas created the Peak Property Performance podcast to solve this problem by making complex digital infrastructure topics accessible to non-technical audiences.

“We try to take complicated topics and make them digestible,” Douglas explains. “The podcast is about digital and data strategies in commercial real estate, but we’re making it for the non-technical person.”

This mission crystallized at CRE Tech, the industry’s largest technology conference. While vendors enthusiastically demonstrated AI features in their platforms, property owners expressed a different sentiment.

“I would talk to an actual property owner or operator, and they would say, ‘Well, I don’t know how I’m supposed to use AI, it’s not changing my job. I feel like I’m falling behind. I don’t understand it,'” Douglas recalls. “They’re confused. There’s a lot of companies they used to have to buy different tools from, and now companies are consolidating. Which one should they do?”

The podcast addresses this confusion by breaking down strategy into understandable concepts, operating on the principle that if you can’t explain something to a high school senior, you’re overcomplicating it.

Education First, Sales Never

Both the podcast and its companion book, Peak Property Performance (published by Fast Company Press in June 2025), prioritize industry education over commercial promotion.

“It’s not meant that they have to hire us. We tell them how to do it in the book,” Douglas says. “The intent of the book was to educate the industry, to lift the industry relative to fear of technology, was not to sell books.”

This educational approach shapes every episode. Rather than diving into technical specifications, the podcast explores fundamental questions: What exactly is digital infrastructure? Why should property owners control their own data? What financial returns can digital investments actually deliver?

From Abstract to Actionable

The podcast excels at translating technical concepts into practical scenarios. When discussing AI readiness, Douglas skips the jargon and asks questions that property managers immediately recognize:

“Why are the lights on? It’s three in the morning and the cleaner was here at midnight, but why are the lights still on? I’m property owner. I’m paying for those lights.”

“Imagine if you had the leasing data with occupancy sensors from smart thermostats, and parking data. You could start to see how many of your tenants are actually parking in my parking deck.”

“It doesn’t see that 150 people are about to walk in the door in a half hour” when discussing HVAC systems that react to thermostats rather than building calendars.

These concrete examples help listeners understand why system integration and data ownership matter beyond theoretical benefits.

Challenging the Status Quo

The podcast doesn’t hesitate to question industry norms. Douglas frequently highlights how commercial real estate uniquely allows third-party vendors to install networks and extract operational data, something unthinkable in other major industries.

“It’s the only industry I’ve ever seen that lets other companies put a network in their building and mine data out of their own asset,” he notes. “Amazon wouldn’t, Toyota wouldn’t. But commercial real estate does it all the time.”

This observation challenges listeners to reconsider standard vendor relationships and technology procurement approaches, pushing them toward strategic thinking about long-term data control.

The Target Audience

The podcast speaks directly to middle-market commercial real estate operators with 10 to 150 properties. These organizations need sophisticated technology strategies but lack the internal IT resources of large REITs.

“Everything we’re talking about is focused on the middle market,” Douglas explains. “They’re not as averse to technology and family offices have a large commercial real estate holding portfolio. We’re just seeing a lot of them be thought leaders.”

Douglas observes a generational shift in technology adoption. “The new generation, either the women or men under 43, women of any age, but men under 43, they are forward thinking and know that technology is how they can squeeze the next five or 7% out of this industry, because they’re not going to be able to raise rent forever.”

Reframing Technology as Investment

At its core, Peak Property Performance advocates for a fundamental perspective shift: viewing technology not as an operating expense to minimize but as infrastructure that generates measurable returns.

“A property owner knows exactly how much if they own apartments, a new countertop will let them raise the rent and what their yield would be on it,” Douglas points out. “They don’t have any idea what the return is on the digital infrastructure in a building because it’s never been managed and monitored.”

The numbers Douglas cites are specific: $500 per door annually in apartments, 50 to 75 cents per square foot in office buildings.

By breaking down complex topics into digestible conversations, the Peak Property Performance podcast helps middle-market operators understand not just what digital infrastructure is, but why it matters to their bottom line. In an industry often characterized as “old, male and stale,” the podcast offers a blueprint for operators ready to think differently about technology’s strategic role.

One conversation at a time, Douglas is helping commercial real estate shed its fear of technology and embrace data-driven decision making.

About OpticWise

OpticWise designs, implements, and manages digital infrastructure for multi-tenant commercial real estate properties across the United States. The company’s mission is to help property owners and operators own and control their digital infrastructure and the data it produces, enabling AI-driven insights, operational efficiency, and significant NOI improvements. OpticWise provides 24/7/365 monitoring and support, designing resilient networks backwards from the sensors and systems they need to support. The company’s “ultimate privacy policy” ensures tenant data privacy is never compromised. OpticWise also publishes the Peak Property Performance podcast, making complex digital infrastructure topics accessible to non-technical audiences